heart attack: a piecemeal chronology & where we are now

I have no recollection at all of what I might have been doing the early afternoon of Saturday, August 10, 2024. Presumably, I was on my way to work, and I got at least as far as the stairway leading to the second floor of the old complex (Mido) where my office is located. I assume I cabbed over to the complex because that's what I normally do. Partial security video of the incident shows me pausing rather dramatically at the bottom (first floor) of the stairway. A person or two came by, apparently asking whether I needed any help, and by my gesture, I assume I waved them away. I then tried to start up the stairs... and instead I fell back—slowly, ponderously, fatly. At which point I was off camera.

The story of what happened next came to me in bits and pieces. Someone—maybe the same people who had earlier to ask whether I'd needed help—rushed up and dialed 119 (the ROK equivalent to 911). From what I hear, a retired doctor was on the scene immediately, and he recognized I'd had a heart attack, prompting him to administer CPR right away (a building staffer helped). I have no idea whether CPR normally feels this brutal; I can only say that, given the pain I'm still in, CPR is a fairly-bone-bruising procedure. Anyway, this doctor (and the building staffer!) essentially saved my life, so as much as I might resent the lingering pain, it's a damn sight better than being dead and blogging from hell. Besides, pain is another indicator that you're alive, right?

By the time I was conscious, I was in the hospital with tubes down my throat. I think, by that point, I had already been moved from the ER to the cardiac ward. Was it later that day, or was it on the 11th? I can't say for sure, and it's amazing how okay I am with not knowing. I found out that the paramedics had taken over with the CPR (I still haven't tracked down the retired doc), and the trauma team did an emergency stent procedure on a severely blocked blood vessel—most likely a coronary artery (damn—why didn't I ask that question before I'd left the hospital?). I guess the procedure involved threading minimally invasive equipment up through my legs because, as I later found out, I had stitches on my inner thighs. The stitches are to be removed at my local clinic on Monday, August 26. I'll need to have my boss make the appointment since I'm not sure whether I'm quite in shape to climb a few flights of stairs; the clinic is on my building's second floor, but because the building is so old, the clinic's location isn't connected with my office's (also on the second floor), i.e., I have to go down to the first floor, cross the building diagonally to a different set of stairs, then ascend to the clinic.

I apparently spent a few days in intensive care. When I woke, though, I was by this point in bed in Samsung Hospital's cardiac ward. It was a 2-bed room, and at first, I had a roommate, but once that person moved out after a day or so, there was no one. Sometime during this period, I was extubated; it wasn't as painful as I'd thought it might be. If getting taken into a hospital is often a matter of stabilization, the next phase is one of monitoring, so as has happened several times before, I was routinely blood-tested (both finger pricks and samples taken out of my inner elbow), X-rayed (done with a machine that was wheeled over to my bed), weighed every morning (which required me to slowly and painfully stand up), pulse and pulse-ox checked, and given a regimen of meds—different ones at different times of day.

I noticed right away that my chest hurt fantastically from the CPR; the first time I coughed in bed was a shocking and painful experience, and it got to the point where I began to fear coughing. I've since been told that I can expect to be in pain for another 2-4 weeks, so I'm doing what I can to both make peace with the pain in my sternum and to keep from coughing. I was on a standard hospital bed, so I used its remote control to adjust the torso tilt and knee bend to keep me comfortable. I also finally got ice pillows to stick under my ass cheeks, thus relieving the pressure that had been on my coccyx, causing the redness that was the precursor to out-and-out bedsores.

Speaking of ass cheeks: one unpleasant aspect of my early days in the hospital was that I wasn't mobile enough to leave my bed to take a shit. I was told, instead, to just shit in my pants as I'd been equipped with enormous diapers. Getting over years of instinct about consciously shitting the bed was difficult for me, but God help me, I got good at it. Yet here's the thing: when the nurses came to wipe me down and change my diaper afterward, I discovered that none of them did a very good deep-cleaning job. When I was finally mobile enough to get out of bed to take a crap that first time, I took advantage of the "smart toilet" to lather up my hand and give my ass crack a thorough cleaning. This also allowed me to look at my linens, and that's how I discovered (1) my hospital pants had light splotches of shit residue on them, and (2) my ass crack still had plenty of leftover shit in it. So I was glad when I'd healed enough to be mobile, and glad when the staff gave me a new, clean set of pants. Once I'd reached that point, I never shit myself in bed again.

My room was, of course, too hot, so I asked my boss early on to bring things back from my apartment, such as a fan and my glasses (contact lenses, while awesome, are a chore to put on and take off more than twice per day; I'd rather deal with glasses). I was then able to eat, read, and sleep rather comfortably. Doctors would occasionally visit to dispense news and/or advice, and they constantly prodded me to get up and walk laps around the ward, guilt-tripping me in a way I've come to see as part of Korean culture. I was still a bit too tired and dizzy to do that very often, but I did eventually—grudgingly—start doing slow laps.

As all of this was going on, my boss—who was also my bohoja (guardian)—was informing people of my status. I got news that both of my brothers would be visiting Korea to see me, perhaps prompted by the thought of not seeing me again. My pro-cellist brother Sean and his husband Jeff diverted from the beginning of a European vacation in Germany to come see me; my brother David, who has been living out West for two years, would arrive from New Mexico a day or so later. It was strange seeing all of them appear in my hospital room. While my brothers are all experienced travelers who know how to take care of themselves when abroad, my boss also took them out to dinner and showed them some local sights as a way to keep them entertained and sane. Sean and Jeff couldn't stay long, but David—who still works remotely for his DC-based company—said he would stay until he was confident that I could move around and function on my own. Sean and Jeff found a nice hotel in the Yeoksam area (one with on-site buffets!); David found an Airbnb in my very apartment building. He says it's generally nice except for the stinky shower drain, which he's been treating with blasts of bleach. This past Saturday, my buddy Charles came around for a visit despite his busy schedule. It was good to see him.

During this time, South Korea has been suffering from a severe heatwave that's been so bad as to make the news several times; for me in my hospital room, this has meant that nights have been a lot more pleasant than days.

I was told by the main cardiac doc that about 95% of people who suffer heart attacks in my particular situation (i.e., while at work, in a hallway, surrounded by strangers) normally die, so I was very lucky to be alive, and very lucky that a particular set of circumstances rose around me to protect me. There was no talk of a specific cardiac-rehab regimen aside from "take your meds at the scheduled times." I was advised to stay away, at least initially, from anaerobic activities like weightlifting, elastic bands, etc., and to concentrate on cardio activities like light walking, beginning with every-other-day walks before expanding from there. I'd still like to build back up to the point where I can walk, say, 10K without stopping so that I can still go on my long walk later this year.

When the time came for me to leave the hospital yesterday morning, the doc came in with his team and fielded some of my lingering questions. I voice-recorded our exchange, which I will play back in front of my boss either today or later this week (the boss and coworker are visiting today, and I plan to start working from home) to see what I missed or misunderstood. I gladly got back into my clothes (David had washed everything the day before, and my black, button-down shirt had had to be replaced by another of my shirts because my original shirt had presumably been cut open back on the 10th), shambled over to the 16th-floor desk to pay my W5.2-million fee for 10 or so days in the hospital, then made my way down to the lobby to catch transportation back to my apartment.

Sean was good enough to arrange a cab ride from the hospital back to my place yesterday; he'd originally gotten an Uber, but Uber cancelled on him, so he found some non-Uber alternative. The driver was friendly, and everything had been prepaid by the time the minivan pulled up. Samsung Hospital is less than a kilometer from my residence; David was in charge of the large No Brand bag that held all of my stuff. For me, it was an effort just to carry myself forward into my building and to my apartment. Jeff was elsewhere during all of this, probably prepping for his and Sean's departure back to the States.

I made a beeline for Paris Baguette to grab some salads and get back onto my own dietary regime (hospital food had been way too carby for a supposedly "diabetic" meal plan—cereal, dinner rolls, and rice porridge were somehow all on the menu, and my blood sugar was always somewhere between 160 and 220 as a result)... but the first thing I noticed was that Paris Baguette was closed for renovations, with huge signs declaring the store would reopen, bigger and better, the week of September 23. I went to the basement grocery, grabbed the only available salads there, then headed up to my place. Sean went back to his hotel, where he helped Jeff continue to prep for their departure the following day. David went to his 7th-floor Airbnb to putter around and begin remote-working. Around 10:30 p.m., with the night presumably cooler, we went out for a walk in the next-door park. I'd originally had ambitions of getting right into doing five laps per session, but it was so hot and humid, even at that time of night, that I decided to restrict myself to doing only a single lap—and even then, I needed to stop twice to catch my breath and keep my head from spinning. Don't go too far, too fast.

The worst thing about being back home, though, was the lack of a hospital bed. I quickly discovered that lying flat on my normal bed was painful as hell for my sternum, which couldn't stand the stretching. After wasting the entire night trying to find a plausible sleeping position (side-sleeping was also impossible), I settled on tucking myself into a corner and sleeping nearly vertically; I have since ordered geometrically shaped pillows from Coupang that ought to enhance the sleeping experience over the nights to come by simulating the experience of being on my hospital bed.

Today, Sean and Jeff left, but not before coming to my apartment to say one last goodbye. I promised to be a better brother-in-law to Jeff; my goal is to write him directly at least once per month. I thanked Sean for everything he'd done while here; I'm proud of the man he's become. David, meanwhile, is probably napping seven floors beneath me.

4 p.m. today. My boss and Korean coworker came over, and we talked about the whole work-from-home thing. I let my boss listen to the recording of my final conversation with the cardiac doc; the boss explained some of the bits of dialogue I hadn't understood.

So where am I now? I'm not walking tonight, but I'm always quietly monitoring my progress. One thing I'm looking at is how painful it is simply to stand up: the mere act of standing is enough to stretch out my chest muscles (such as they are), and I've noticed that, over the past 48 hours, it's gotten easier to stand with less and less pain. Here's hoping that that trend line continues. I also noticed that, despite being back on heart meds, last night's dosing didn't lead to diarrhea this morning, which I take to be a good sign: I remain off whatever had been causing the problems last time. Good. I don't expect to sleep too comfortably tonight, but I now have an idea what my current sleeping posture needs to be. Tomorrow, my pillows will show up, so I ought to be closer to simulating conditions at the hospital. That'll be nice.

As the weather gets cooler, and we head into September, I'll be outside and walking ever more vigorously. I've promised Sean that I'll send him progress reports; we'll see whether this scare will have made him into a better correspondent. (David, too.) And I will, Dear Reader, of course keep you informed of my progress as well.